


Baby Mine

by Evilsnowswan



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: ADHD, Addiction, Belle and Mental Health Issues, Bipolar Disorder, Disabled Character, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Learning Disabilities, Mental Health Issues, NICU, Neurodiversity, Physical Disability, Postpartum Depression, Pregnancy complications, Premature Birth/Delivery, Substance Abuse, premature baby
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-17 02:34:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4648965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evilsnowswan/pseuds/Evilsnowswan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><strong>Summary</strong>: She showed him love, he showed her beauty. But every coin has a flip-side.<br/>When their family grows, they find themselves facing unexpected challenges - will they be able to make it work? [Non- Magical AU] </p><p><strong>Warnings:</strong>: SO MANY - please check additional tags (AO3)<br/><strong>Allergy information</strong>: Contains Angst. May also contain smut and traces of fluff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Baby Mine

He knew he should not be driving. Contrary to popular belief, Rhys Gold was no brainless idiot. Roads were wet, visibility was poor and he was royally steaming. He was going too fast and running lights, but chances were he would either wind up dead or in a drunk cell tonight anyway, so a few red lights more or less really didn’t make much of a difference.

The road that was black in the day time just melted into the darkness of the night. Back in the city the highway had been black and fresh, bright yellow paint and smooth asphalt. Now that skyscrapers and most of lingering suburbia were already long behind him, those sunny stripes had become aged with hairline cracks and in place of a metal barrier, a meter of welted grass - baked golden and burnt from the summer heat - functioned as central line. He could not see the cracks or the grass anymore, but he could feel the vibrations as his tires skidded over the unevenness every now and then, and he could smell the grass and the increasing number of trees and bushes that had begun to appear on either side of the road. The heavy rain of the afternoon made everything smell earthy and green. Headlights of passing cars – growing fewer and far between - were reflected in the water that glistened on the street’s surface.

He tightened his grip on the handlebars, his hands numb and stiff already, and accelerated again. Reckless velocity, the sensation of mad speed that he both despised and craved, made the blood rush in his ears as he shot through the night. He wasn’t one of those bikers without enough brain cells to comprehend the concept of mortality, it was just that - most of the time - he did not care two straws whether he lived or died. But he cared tonight.

He had sat by the river knocking back several bottles of whatever and longing for that blissful state of comfortably numb, when his phone rang in his jacket pocket. He had been almost as determined to ignore the call as the caller had seemed to be to reach him. The shrill noise had become constant – relentless tiny drills boring into his already throbbing brain matter, only pausing for a few seconds here and there as if to draw breath, before starting back up again. Whoever had had the nerve to piss him off seemed like they would not be deterred, so he had finally given in and grudgingly answered his bloody phone.

Next he knew, the rug had been pulled out from under him and he was half running, half stumbling up the bank to get to his Harley.

She was having his baby. She was having _his_ baby. She was having his baby _now_.

He felt every tiny bump in the road as he hurtled over them at a sacrilegious pace, the wind screaming in his ears. Trees and houses flew by too quickly for his eyes to fully register while he stared ahead into the dark void. His surroundings were getting more rural now and the street lightning spotty at best.

He had stopped counting the days. Time had stopped existing in his world the moment that she had. Days had bled into an endless blur of colors, shapes, movement and sound in his mind. He went about in a daze, a deliciously painful state of nothingness, most of the time he spent awake. Without her he was nothing. Without her he was vast aching emptiness. Without her there were only bottles, stains and broken glass fragments. Maybe, if you lost everything, it was nothing that you became.

He had become quite efficient at ridding his mind of all thought, knew exactly how much it took to keep himself on the edge of sweet oblivion where the only thing that mattered was where he’d get enough liquid gold to stay there. No matter how much he wished to finally drown for good, a small part in the corner of his brain had kept him here, had kept him alive and tethered to this earth, in the hopes that she would return to him, in the hopes that he would get better. She never had and so never had he. He wanted so desperately to cut those last ties that kept him from jumping into the gaping abyss, but he was too much of a coward to do even that. So he had settled for a half-life of stale food and misery with a constant flow of liquid courage as his lifeline.

Consciousness came in waves. Sometimes clarity would strike in the middle of the night and last long enough for him to shave or get something solid into his system for a change. Sometimes he would even find it in him to pick up his guitar and set up in a subway to play for a bit of loose change. Busking would never make him rich, it was barely enough to keep body and soul together, but it kept him afloat for the most part. He was good when he was lucid and bloody brilliant when he hit another high.  He took those as they came, rode the tidal wave rush of burning enthusiasm and crazy creativity like a pro-surfer catching the wave of their career and gave into his crushing desire to create and express until his fingers bled and his throat blistered. That pain was good pain. He would allow himself to burst into a thousand tiny shards of stained glass, would send all his colors flying in a whirlwind of his music - a strangely beautiful human kaleidoscope creating a pattern, broken bits and pieces that came together to form a new magnificent piece of art, almost too bright and dazzling in its ludicrousness.

He would milk those highs for all they were worth while they lasted, and ride them out until his legs gave out from under him, until he would find himself gasping for air, sweaty and high on endorphins. His body would be heavy as lead, but for a few glorious hours his brain would be weightless. He would be coasting on blissfully calm waters. Waters so calm and clear that they made everything appear whole and good and right and just where it should be. Those moments – like the soft blue of daybreak, or the content purr of a cat – were everything.

After the sudden bursts there was always the fallout, a negative whiplash effect of some sort that he had learned to expect. Maybe it was the height of fall that made the ensuing lows even more intolerable than the usual emotional downslides. Those were slower, a gradual process faded to the background, while the post-high drop was a free fall off the cliff with wide open eyes. The crash shook and broke all the bones in his body anew, leaving him behind broken, crippled and crawling. He would numb the flip-side pain the only way he knew how.

Time had no longer mattered in Rhys’s world. Time only mattered if there was progress to be measured. He had not made any progress, had not made anything. He had only kept breathing. Had it really been that long? He had no way of knowing. Some days he didn’t even remember his own name. He guessed it must have been - and the thought of _months_ passing him by without his knowledge, without him even so much as acknowledging them as they came and went in his absence, startled him so much that he almost lost balance for a second, his tires slipping on the wet pavement.

Why hadn’t she called? Why hadn’t she let him know she was pregnant? He would have been by her side in a flash, would have gotten her the moon and all the starts in the night sky if she had asked for them. He would have tried so much _harder_ – for her, for them – if only he had known. She had once told him that she believed in him, that she would never stop fighting for him if he just kept fighting for himself. Rhys wondered if it had been him or she who had given up first. Did she no longer believe he could do it? Was that why she hadn’t come back? Hadn’t called?

He noticed a sudden brief drop in temperature, which meant he must just have sped past some larger body of water. It was so dark now, his headlights the only light source, that he sensed it rather than saw it. He shuddered involuntarily. He would have to prove her wrong then. He would prove everyone wrong. Maybe he would even end up surprising himself.

She was having his _baby_. He would be a father and he was determined not to fuck it up.

Whatever had caused her to keep this from him; she must have changed her mind. She wanted him _there_. She wanted him _by her side_ now. His heart leapt at the mere thought of her. It was as if the lights in his head had been switched back on. It felt safe to look now. She would be there. He had not lost her forever. They would make this work.

Suddenly she was everywhere. Memories of her rushed in like high tide and flooded his brain, pushing to the fore of his mind with such brute force that it made him quiver. Her smell, long gone from the bed they had once shared and almost forgotten, hit his nose with such intensity that it took his breath away. Her essence  gently enveloped him as if it were a soft blanket and Rhys laughed out loud at the mental image of a blanket fluttering like a superhero cape in high speed.

He heard her laugh in his head, saw her little hands fly to her mouth to stifle the sound and failing. She had always said she hated her laugh, but every time he had heard her giggling through her nose, snorting adorably, Rhys had fallen a little more in love with her.

Trying to outrace the very air itself, he sped up as much as the engine would allow. His arms twitched from the effort of holding steady. He needed to see her face and hear her voice and assure her that, if only she gave him this one last chance, he would do _everything_ , everything he possibly could, and he would never let her go again.

When he drove into the sleepy coastal town of Storybrooke, Maine, he employed both his rear and front breaks to gently ease his bike into a slower pace. The engine was loud and he did not want everyone in the sleepy hamlet alerted of his arrival immediately.

At first glance the place seemed no different from how he remembered it from his previous - albeit only fleeting - visit a few years back.

Rhys, bellowing curses over the raging wind until he was hoarse, had driven up from the city to pick up his distraught girlfriend after she had had a huge falling out with her father over Thanksgiving dinner. The two of them had had a fight just before she had left for her hometown a few days prior and he had been so mad at her for making him come after her to get her in the dismal November weather, that he had felt the anger build up and coil into a red hot ball of fury in his stomach,  turning him into a ticking time bomb that had been ready to go off the minute he lay eyes on her. When he had reached her, however, she had looked so miserable that he had deflated like an old balloon at once. He remembered the tears flowing unchecked down her cheeks and dripping from her chin. She had just stood there, on the corner of the street, out alone in the snow clutching her duffle and donning only her woolen cardigan and jeans, frozen stiff and standing as still as a marble statue while the cold winds had swept over her. He had engulfed her in a hug and taken her home.

The glow of the street-lamps yellowed the raindrops and cast a smudgy beam onto the desolate country road riddled with pot holes. At this late hour the town was quiet and fast asleep. Driving at walking speed, he passed the greengrocer with his window full of apples and oranges, and the butcher with his bloody lumps of meat on display and naked chickens hanging up, and the small bank, and the grocery store and the electrical shop, and then the ice-cream parlor, sheriff station and the only diner. Everything was closed, of course, but quite a few windows were also boarded up.

There was an overall sense of gloom and misery in the air. It seemed to have soaked into the sidewalk cracks and into the graffitied walls in the back alleys. It was in the half- boarded up stores that must have once been loaded with great goods and now housed everything for a dollar (judging by the hand-written sale signs), as well as in the gas station that had gone out of business. This was no place to dare and dream big. No wonder it had suffocated her, a bright mind like hers, so eager to see and learn it all. Even the library seemed to be closed for good.

Her father’s flower shop appeared to have been spared so far. Rhys wasn’t sure whether that pleased him or not. He had never met her father, but loathed the man on principle.  

He came out at the other side of town on to the narrow road that led to the harbor in one, and the hospital and church in the other direction.

Storybrooke General lay right beside the sea, its neat roadways bordered by green lawns and flanked by buildings Rhys could not make out in the darkness. As he came to a halt his heart jumped into his throat and his mouth went dry. With butterflies in his stomach and his head buzzing with possibilities, he parked his bike, took one last look at the large illuminated red cross on top of the building and went inside.

A draft of stuffy air hit his face, warm and with a tincture of bleach. Two more steps into the entrance hall and the acrid smell of sanitizer and bleach had become undeniable reality. He pinched the bridge of his nose and curled his lips, taking slow steadying breaths through is mouth rather than his nose to calm down his gag reflex.

Like the rest of town, the building was old. Unlike the other buildings, however, the hospital lacked what could have been described as the retro small-town charme. The floors were slate grey and the walls a dull shade of magnolia. They were scraped in places from the hundreds of trolleys that seemed to have bumped into them over the years. There were a few chairs and plants.

Rhys blinked. The light was too bright for his eyes after the darkness outside. He found it abrasive, enough perhaps to bring on one of his migraines. It also heightened his feeling of inadequacy. Clad in his leather biking gear, helmet tucked safely under one arm he stuck out like a sore thumb. He became very aware of his overall unkempt appearance under the harsh light’s scrutiny – his windswept hair (that he hadn’t washed in several days), the three-day-stubble and the stickiness of his clothes, clinging to his sweaty skin under his gear. He very much wished that he had had the presence of mind to shower and change into clean clothes and brush his teeth first. For the narrow-minded townsfolk he must have been quite a horrific sight.  Despite its age, the place was spotless and he must have been the filthiest creature in living memory to have crossed the threshold – if the scandalized look on the receptionist nurse's face was anything to go by.

He quickly faked a cough to check his breath. He could do with a strong menthol lozenge or a cough drop, but thankfully he could not detect the telling smell of booze. He would locate a restroom as soon as possible to freshen up a little – just to be sure.

The nurse behind the desk eyed him suspiciously as he approached. He wasn’t sure whether he should smile at her or not. The woman had a face like a brick. Her movements were all sharp and with purpose and she looked like the kind of person who had never cracked a single joke in her entire life. Rhys sighed and squared his shoulders. Should he have brought something? _Flowers_? He really hadn’t thought this through and suddenly he felt far from ready.

“Good evening, Sir. How can I help you?”

Rhys had to fight the urge to check for bolts or wires to make sure the nurse was actually human. She sounded as detached and generic as the voices on the subway or at the airport that told you to _mind the gap_ , _to stand clear of the closing doors_ and to never ever _leave your feckin luggage unattended_. He gulped.

“Uh, I – am here for … - I’d like to know which room Belle French is in, please?” he felt his face flush.

The nurse’s face remained impassive – except for her eyebrows, which disappeared into her hairline.

He was sure she was sizing him up, no doubt falling back on everything she had ever heard or suspected about men like him to do it - bikers, disheveled men, lazy good-for-nothings, men from the big city who knocked up innocent small town girls and then showed up late for their own child’s birth looking like the personified warnings of every mother ever incarnate.  He really hoped she would keep her thoughts and final judgement to herself. He could fill in the blanks by himself just fine. He’d probably find himself the center of town gossip by tomorrow either way. Small towns breathed gossip and scandals.

“Miss French is in OR 3 at the moment. If you like you can wait in the waiting area until a doctor will be available to talk to you. The waiting rooms are on this floor. Just go through here” she pointed to her left with an outstretched arm like a flight attendant pointing out the emergency exits “and then make a right turn at the end of the hallway. You can’t miss it.”

He stood and stared. Her words and their meaning trickled into his brain like thick maple syrup, dripping sluggishly one lazy drop at a time and it took him a few moments to comprehend what she had just told him.

Belle was in an OR? But surely children were usually born in delivery rooms? Or did they use an OR for that here, because they had no delivery rooms? That had to be it, Rhys thought, this was the country side. Medical care was a bit more … _practical_ here.

“The cafeteria is on the second floor, but the kitchen is closed until four still. There are vendor machines.”

Was he imagining things, or did robo-nurse actually look mildly concerned now?

“Would you like me to call the OR and see if anyone could come and update you, Sir?” she offered, then checked the white clock on the wall “it should not be too long now.”

“Yes, yes, thank you. I will just go and –“ he gestured in the general direction of the waiting area.

She nodded.

Rhys felt like he was missing something vital. Something was very clearly wrong. This was not how things were supposed to go, was it? This did not feel right. Couldn’t fathers usually be present in the room when their children were born? Was something wrong with the baby? Had something happened to Belle? Was she okay? When would he be able to see her? He didn’t like this at all.

Dread crept over him like an icy chill, numbing his brain. In its frozen state his mind was directing his thoughts to the second floor. He wondered whether they sold anything that would help calm his nerves. His breathing came rapid and shallow as he walked, his pulse pounding in his temples.

The hallway he was walking down had as much personality as the rest of the hospital. There were commercial prints on the walls, cheap benign pictures of uplifting scenes. This place certainly wasn’t run by risk-takers and he guessed he could find some comfort in that. Above every door he passed was a large plastic sign, dark with white lettering- no fancy fonts, just bold and all-caps.

He turned right like he had been instructed. The sign above the door read waiting room area, which meant a television and plastic chairs in rows. It was about as comfortable as a train station. It was almost empty, but for two taken seats. A blonde in a wrinkled office outfit in the far left corner – heels, pencil skirt and white blouse – and a brunette wearing a white and red combination of a button-down shirt that left her middle bare and a skimpy skirt. Her attire and choice in makeup screamed young pretty waitress hired as eye-candy for the lonelier and creepier customers to ogle at.She sat, looking out the window and foot tapping up and down like some wind-up toy.

He stood in the doorway hesitating, unsure where to sit and whether to greet the women or not. He did not feel like starting conversation.

To his surprise the brunette leapt to her feet as soon as she saw him, a strained smile on her face as she walked up to him and held out her hand “Finally! You must be Rhys? I’m Ruby – we spoke on the phone.”

They shook hands.

So this was Belle’s friend Ruby. He wasn’t sure yet what to make of her. He recognized her voice now, of course, but would never in a million years have guessed that it was her whom it belonged to. The voice was too mature for her somehow. He had expected someone older.

They sat down and he noticed the stack of empty paper cups and a half-eaten sandwich on the seat next to her. It was  a relief to sit down, because between his throbbing head and shaky  legs, He’d been slightly afraid he'd trip or vomit on his boots.

“How long have you been here?” this question was probably as good as any to start with. All of a sudden he had so many, that it took him a moment to sort them all.

“I don’t know. A few hours” she checked her phone and sighed “too long. Listen, I really have to go. I wanted to wait till you got here. I was hoping she would be back out by then” she looked at the door expectantly – as if a doctor or nurse were to materialize in the doorway at any moment now – then shifted around on her chair “I did not want her to be alone when she wakes up.”

“What happened?” Yes that was the question of all questions it seemed. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to hear the answer or not. Cold sweat glistened on his furrowed brow. With hands clasped tightly in front of his stomach he constantly fiddled with his knuckles, weaving his fingers in and out of each other.

“She went into labor again” Ruby explained “She had a scare two or three weeks ago already, but it turned out to be false alarm.”

Rhys felt himself holding his breath, fear rising in his chest.

“It’s too early, but they could not stop it today” Ruby’s face fell “They tried, but had to go for an emergency C-section, because the little one wasn’t doing so good.” She shook her head “She wanted to call you, you know. She’s only thirty weeks.”  

He was sure someone had just punched him in the gut. His whole world was spinning again and there was not enough oxygen in the room. His first impulse was to dash from the room and get out of the building to take in lungfuls of the cool night air and hop back on his Harley for a few rounds to calm down and clear his head.

She laid a hand lightly on his shoulder and he found himself surprised that she did not recoil from his shabby state. He sure must have been looking like hell and smelling even worse. Her face, however, held no hint of reserve, no trace of disgust, no inkling of dislike. There was only gentle concern in her eyes and calm and caring in her soft voice.

“I am sure they will be okay.” She gave his shoulder a slight squeeze, then let go again.

Not knowing what to say, he got back up and began pacing up and down as if determined to wear out a thin trail in the carpet. He stared down at his boots. His eyes were large and watery. As he paced, he constantly punched one hand into the other to relieve some of the tension. He could think better when he was moving.

So, she had wanted to call him – but _when_? And why hadn’t she called him _sooner_?

What if something went wrong – _how long did emergency C-sections usually take?_   - and he would not get the chance to speak to her again? What if he would lose them both tonight? What if they both slipped right through his fingers? How was he supposed to fight for them, if there was nothing he could bloody _do_? If he just sat twiddling his thumbs, he’d surely go berserk.

His nerves were frayed to the quick. In his building anxiety he constructed elaborate rationalizations for why everything would turn out alright, surely would, had to, but still the nagging voice in the back of his mind spoke of nothing but doom and loss ahead.

He stopped at the windows, yearning to yank them open to let some air in, only to find them locked and sealed. Who in this damn building did he have to track down to get his hands on the key? He very much wanted to punch a wall and smash that ticking clock on the wall to pieces.

“Hey!”

He spun back around to find himself face to face with Belle’s friend who patiently steered him back to his seat and pushed him firmly down to sit.

“Between both your tempers that kid will be a handful!” she chuckled good-naturedly “better get a handle on that hot head of yours, daddy – you will need to lead by example” she winked and then laughed a short hearty laugh “toddler and teenage years should be interesting, _oh boy_.”

He wanted to laugh with her and believe in that picture she was painting - A picture of a family, _his_ family. He also wanted to tell her to shut up and not jinx it and that he was fairly certain that he’d be a lousy dad, mediocre at best. He hadn’t got the first idea about how to be a father. How would he have known? Not sure which sentiment he wanted to voice – if any – he kept his trap shut instead and looked at his feet again.

More time passed. He wasn’t sure how much, because he was trying his very best to drown the ticking sound out. It didn’t matter. They’d know when they’d know. Nothing he could do. He was parched and exhausted, but he did not dare leave the room to get a bottle of water or some coffee from the cafeteria just yet. What if the doctors came right the moment he was out? He was determined to stay put until he was sure she was okay. They were okay. _They_.

He and Ruby and the blonde sat knee-deep in silence. In the room there was no sound, yet everyone was moving again, moving and not talking. Belle’s friend was walking back and forth by the front window, never letting go of the phone clutched in her left hand. The blonde woman, who still had not said a single word, was flipping through the pile of magazines next to her, picking one up and opening it at random only to stare at a page blankly for a few moments before she would put it back down. Rhys knew she wasn’t reading. Her heavy-lidded eyes were unfocused and puffy. She had either been crying or had not gotten enough sleep. Probably both. He felt sorry for her.

Ruby’s phone buzzed and his frazzled nerves jumped all together, and in different directions. He had jumped to his feet reflexively and was pretty sure he knew what if felt like to be tasered now. His heart hammered in his chest.

“Sh -ugar!” Ruby grabbed her jacket from the chair-back “Rhys? – I really have to go.  Please, promise to let me know when there’s news” she gathered up the trash “my number should be in your caller history.”

She was half out of the door before his brain had caught up “What happened?”

“My son - night terrors -have to calm him down myself!” she yelled back over her shoulder.

Then she was gone and Rhys stood and stared at the door. Ruby – had a child? _Oh_. Apparently, his expertise in human nature was lacking. She had taken him by surprise three times in such a short amount of time. Rhys decided that maybe he did like that girl. She was a good friend.

He picked up one of the magazines and sat back down. _Recipes_. Well, if he was going to be a father, he might as well learn how to properly cook a meal. Skimming through half of the recipes he concluded that none were child-friendly and that he wouldn’t even touch some of those dishes as an adult. What some people called a meal, he might have considered an attempt on his life.

“Excuse me, Sir? Are you here for Belle French?”

The magazine slipped from his hands and fell to the floor. He stumbled to his feet, his legs and arms suddenly too long and too wobbly to coordinate movement.

He looked up into the kind face of a nurse – brown hair, brown eyes – his heart jumping into his throat rendering him mute. He just nodded.

He reached his hand up to his neck and as he did so the ticking from the waiting room wall clock seemed to get louder, counting life away. It had to be _bad news_ , he knew it would be. He felt his insides grow warm in an unpleasant way and his stomach, though empty, writhed as if struggling with a rich meal.

Her face broke into a smile and his heart plummeted back down and shot right through into his stomach. He had literally just swallowed a square brick and it had made his eyes water.

“Mother and child are doing well – considering the circumstances. There have been some complications, but both are stable now.”

His stomach shifted again, knots loosening, and he noticed that the hands that he was apparently hugging himself with were pinching into his skin. He released his hands, but then couldn’t figure out what to do with them next, so instead they clasped and unclasped each other as if in constant need of touch and reassurance. But what they really needed was to be able to touch _her_ , to cup her face and make sure she was truly well and _there_.

“Congratulations!” the nurse said “would you like to see her?”

Rhys still didn’t know what to say or what to do with his hands. It seemed like all he could manage for the time being were nods. He didn’t trust his voice to speak yet. It would either come out shrill and break or not come at all. Gurgling sounds seemed to be an option.

The nurse looked at him knowingly “I’ll just take that as a yes, I think. Please follow me.”

The anticipation was a nervous kind of energy. It tingled through him like electrical sparks on the way to the ground, gathering in his toes. The walk to the elevators and the ride to the third floor seemed both too long and non-existent at the same time, almost like part of him wasn't really there. The nurse chatted away happily, doing the talking for both of them.

Part of him had actually expected to be led to the recovery room and was momentarily puzzled over why they were passing up the hallway with the mothers’ rooms and then walked straight past the sign that read recovery too - until they were standing outside of the NICU.

Rhys thought he might start crying in earnest. Dissolve into a puddle of leather, filth and tears, grossly sobbing on the floor. He tenderly placed his palm against the incubator. She was all hooked up to wires and beeping monitors, the diaper too big on her – even though the nurse assured him it was one of the smallest sizes they came in.

After the initial shock, he almost didn’t see the wires and patches anymore. He only saw the most perfect little baby girl. _Ten tiny toes and ten tiny fingers_. He marveled at the sheer miracle of nature that were her little fingernails. She was so _small_ and yet so _perfect_ – with dark eyelashes and dark fine fuzz on her head. She was a wee 3 pounds and 2 ounces and 15.75 inches of utter bliss.

The nurse had told him that his daughter was a little fighter, with strong - but still underdeveloped - lungs. They had put her on CPAP to help her breathe and rest and she would be fed through a feeding tube and IV for now – not quite ready for a bottle yet.

He also couldn’t hold her yet, so he just sat by the incubator and gently stroked her forearm with one finger, his touch but a faint whisper on her skin. She was precious porcelain – her skin still thin and a semi-translucent reddish-purple with arteries and veins easily visible below – and he was beyond _terrified_ at the thought of accidentally hurting her.

He had never been so _scared_ and he had never been so _happy_. Pride and pure joy flowed through him, soaking right into his bones and warming his skin like the rays of an early summer sun. His customary cautious grin exploded into a radiant smile that he had never worn before, not even as a young boy.

He spoke as softly as he could, so as not to hurt her little ears that still had so much growing to do before he could play her music. He apologized for only now becoming part of her life. He promised to never leave her side again for as long as he lived. In that moment he knew he would do anything in the world for her. He would be her hero, her keeper, her friend. He would be whatever she needed him to be.


End file.
